The Doctor and Rose pursue a mysterious object in the time vortex to 1941
London, in the middle of the Blitz. The Doctor discovers that the city is
being haunted by an eerie child, his face covered by a gas mask. Rose,
meanwhile, is saved from certain death during an air raid by Captain Jack
Harkness -- who, like the TARDIS crew, is a man from another time and
place.

Production

Of the three two-part stories earmarked for the new Doctor Who
series' first season, only one was not scripted by executive producer
Russell T Davies. This appeared in his autumn 2003 pitch document under
the titles “World War II” and “Captain Jax”, and
was designed to introduce the season's third and final companion. Davies
originally envisaged Jax (masquerading under the alias “Jack
Harkness”) as an interstellar alien soldier who befriends the Doctor
but intimidates Rose. He was to be tracking an escaped child-creature, the
story's antagonist.

To write the two-parter, Davies secured the services of Steven Moffat, who
had contacted Davies in September 2003, immediately upon the announcement
of Doctor Who's return to television. Although “World War
II” and “Captain Jax ” formed what was in essence a
spooky historical, the award-winning Moffat was largely known for comedy,
writing such series as Coupling, Joking Apart and Press
Gang. As well, he scripted the 1999 Doctor Who Comedy Relief
spoof The Curse Of Fatal Death starring Rowan Atkinson, and
contributed to Virgin Publishing's Decalog 3: Consequences
anthology in 1996.

Originally Jamie's father appeared, helping Nancy and the
war orphans, and was revealed as a German

Moffat's episodes gained the titles The Empty Child and The
Doctor Dances. He abandoned the new companion's “Jax”
identity (partly because of a recent proliferation of similarly-named
recurring characters in various Doctor Who spin-off media,
including Trix in the Eighth Doctor novels from BBC Books and Hex in Big
Finish Productions' series of audio plays) and made Jack a human conman
from the future. In the process, Moffat altered Jack's relationship with
Rose, as well as the nature of Davies' original
“child-creature”. The eponymous Empty Child would now be the
result of Chula technology -- the name coming from an Indian restaurant
where Moffat and fellow new series scribes Paul Cornell, Mark Gatiss and
Robert Shearman had celebrated their Doctor Who contracts in
February 2004. Early drafts of the adventure included the character of
Jamie's father, who would silently and anonymously appear to aid Nancy and
the war orphans. The climactic discovery of his true identity would be
accompanied by the revelation that he is German, providing an alternative
motivation to Nancy's shame. The nanogenes were originally called
“nanites” but this was changed because of concerns about the
same term's usage in the Star Trek franchise.

Casting for Captain Jack Harkness began around June, with executive
producer Julie Gardner asking that the production team consider John
Barrowman. Barrowman, who was born in Scotland but raised in Illinois, had
starred in a number of West End musicals. In 1998, he was nominated for a
Laurence Olivier Theatre Award in the category of Best Actor in a Musical
for The Fix. On television, Barrowman had starred in two
short-lived nighttime soap operas in the United States: Central Park
West and Titans.

Originally, the season's fourth recording block was to include only The
Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. For logistical reasons this
plan changed slightly, with the two episodes now forming “Block
4B” alongside “Block 4A”, which consisted solely of The Long Game. Blocks 4A and 4B were helmed
by different directors all the same, however, with James Hawes tapped to
handle the two-part story. Hawes had directed episodes of several
television series, including The Bill, Holby City and Sea
Of Souls.

In the script, the setting was an earlier incarnation of
Albion Hospital from Aliens Of London

Only two days of production occurred during 2004, with special effects
shots completed at Unit Q2 in Newport on December 17th and 18th. Work
resumed in 2005 with four days at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary, starting on
January 4th. The location had been used as Albion Hospital earlier in the
season (for Aliens Of London) and so it
was made explicit in the script that this was an earlier incarnation of
the same facility. Alley scenes were filmed off Womanby Street in Cardiff
on the 9th and 10th; the latter day also took Doctor Who back to
Headlands School in Penarth (used for The Unquiet
Dead) which was now dressed as the speakeasy. More work at the
Infirmary followed, from January 11th to 14th.

In order to achieve the necessary height, Rose dangling from the barrage
balloon was filmed in a hangar at RAF St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan,
on January 17th. Taping then shifted to the studio at Unit Q2 from the
18th to the 20th, where material aboard Jack's ship and in the TARDIS was
completed. The next major location was the Chula vessel's crash site, on
the premises of Vale of Glamorgan Railway Ltd. Recording there began on
January 21st and continued from the 23rd to the 27th. A house on Bargoed
Street in Grangetown then posed as the exterior of the Lloyds' premises
on the 28th. Sequences set in the dwelling's interior were performed on
January 31st and February 7th at Unit Q2, along with more TARDIS footage.

Glamorgan House in Cardiff was the location for the officers' club on
February 8th. The 8th and 9th were also the dates for recording model
sequences, at the BBC Model Unit Stage in London. The final scenes in the
Lloyds' home were then recorded in Newport on the 9th and 11th. By this
point, it was found that The Doctor Dances was running short, and
so Moffat quickly wrote the scene in which Nancy returns to warn the
orphans, during which the Empty Child possesses the typewriter. This was
taped at Unit Q2 on February 25th, bringing production to a close.